XXVII.
April 7th.
—TOUTT bel bois ka allé. … News has just come that Ti
Marie died last night at the lazaretto of the Fort: she was
attacked by what they call the lavérette-pouff,—a form of
the disease which strangles its victim within a few hours.
Ti Marie was certainly the neatest little màchanne I ever knew.
Without being actually pretty, her face had a childish charm
which made it a pleasure to look at her;—and she had a clear
chocolate-red skin, a light compact little figure, and a
remarkably symmetrical pair of little feet which had never felt
the pressure of a shoe. Every morning I used to hear her passing
cry, just about daybreak:—"Qui 'lè café?—qui 'lè sirop?" (Who
wants coffee?—who wants syrup?) She looked about sixteen, but
was a mother. "Where is her husband?" I ask. "Nhomme-y mó
laverette 'tou." (Her man died of the verette also.) "And the
little one, her yche?" "Y lazarett." (At the lazaretto.) …
But only those without friends or relatives in the city are
suffered to go to the lazaretto;—Ti Marie cannot have been of
St. Pierre?
—"No: she was from Vauclin," answers Manrn-Robert. "You do not often
see pretty red girls who are natives of St. Pierre. St. Pierre has
pretty sang-mêlées. The pretty red girls mostly come from Vauclin.
The yellow ones, who are really bel-bois, are from Grande Anse: they
are banana-colored people there. At Gros-Morne they are generally black." …
